


salix alba;

by volna (seductrce)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (?), (??), (???), Angst, Fluff, M/M, POV Jon Snow, also sansa is a lesbian ? its not important to this but i needed it said ok thanks, and some...fucking, anygays tormund and jon are both soft as hell for each other im SICK and TIRED, is it a me fic if i dont mention every stark child at least once? unlikely!, read the notes, season 8 ish chronologically, the ptsd train hits again !, this is like..., with like... a little
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 20:08:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19180507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seductrce/pseuds/volna
Summary: Their gaze held for a moment, then Tormund waved his looking glass like a paddle.“Whatcha waintin’ for, heh? Water’s hot enough for both of us.”aka Jon and Tormund discuss things while sharing a bath as Jon trims Tormund’s beard. It’s exactly what you’d expect it to be. don’t @ me how I didn’t tell you bc I just did.





	salix alba;

**Author's Note:**

> all i wanted from this was something sweet and wholesome and NOT heavy with death and other terrible things - which manifested in my brain in the form of Jon helping Tormund trim his beard in whatever way. so what I wanted was Jon helping Tormund trim his beard.  
> and now i have 8k of the post-war life of Jon Snow at Winterfell and its not even what i wanted really, who AM i and what IS this ??? i didnt even use to like Jon as a character, this is honestly. all tormunds fault.
> 
> anyway, as before: since the books :) arent finished yet :) and we dont know when they will be :) things like set-design, casting, recent developments etc are pulled from the show.  
> this is like, post-war but pre ??? i dont know where to place it chronologically bc i havent watched season 8 and its not really all that important either; just imagine a good day at winterfell with no bad things happening. i guess. do they even have those ?
> 
> also as before: i have no idea how to write or how to write these characters specifically so yk, this might be baD! i dont knoW! ok

I

 

“Come on, little sister! Show me what you g-”

Arya’s viper-quick strike hit him thrice; twice on each shoulder and once in the heart. 

“Knighted. Also dead,” she smirked, panting from their half-hour long training session, and returned into the poised stance she kept most of the time - an elegant, beautiful move that reminded more of dancing than fighting, showing her slender like needle itself.

Her mere skill kept pulling a sharp edge into Jon’s eyes, the way she held herself with that unnervingly calm confidence, the shadow of a benevolent smile tucked away in a mouth corner. She’d grown so much in those years of separation, both in height and person… her hastiness and eager scorn replaced by actions and words well-chosen - a maturity Jon knew too well, of having seen death so many times one got used to it.

What did she keep saying, as if it was the first and last answer to any one question?

Valar Morghulis.  _ All men must die. _

Valyrian, carried home with bloody hands across salt-heavy seas. Sometimes, it almost felt like she wasn’t Arya anymore. And yet-

“Not. Quite!”

He twisted around her, swinging his practice sword with fatal precision and tried to place a hit against her knee, but she moved too swiftly and had stepped three strides out of his reach before he had his blade back in the air, nimble as a cat. A laugh broke out of her again, joyful and loud, splitting her face into one so reminiscent of the past his heart ached in Jon’s chest. For a moment, she looked like the gleeful nine year old girl once more, the one he’d thought he’d lost forever. 

“You can’t catch me, old man!”

She was Arya still, only changed. And who was he to talk? He was hardly the same boy he’d been that day he’d left Winterfell for the wall. Not in the slightest.

“Old man??? You tiny little-”

She squealed when he dropped his weapon to plunge after her, and just like that their swords lay forgotten, they were wrestling in the icy mud, and Jon had Arya in a head-lock, rubbing his slippery knuckles against her head while she choked out a jumble of profanities and laughter. Just like the old days, only with more eloquent vocabulary. 

Even if Arya was different now, grown up without him - even if he didn’t know what she had been through and she wouldn’t ever tell… it didn’t change a thing. There was still nothing he wouldn’t do for his baby sister, and be it roll through the dirt like a pig to make her screech in delight and let her bend his arms behind his back until he thought she’d pop his shoulders - the clear winner of their match.

When she’d been robbed if not of her life than the closest thing to it, she  _ should _ get to stay a child some more. And once in a while, so should he. 

 

II

 

He was finishing washing up after the mud-and-snow-ball recreation of the famous last battle between the King of Winterfell and the Red King of Bolton he’d conducted with Arya after practice, when a knock sounded against his door. Sansa stuck her head in, not waiting for his call. 

“Jon?”

She grinned when she saw him scrubbing a once-clean washcloth down his naked arms and neck. 

“Heard you trained with Arya in the yard today.”

Jon smiled down at his hands as he scraped away at the dried dirt on his nail beds without any luck. A familiar warmth spread his fondness sweet, dripping down his clavicles like molten sugar syrup. He glanced up.

“We did. She nearly beheaded me. Twice.”

A light stole its way into Sansa’s eyes at that, something Jon was still getting used to seeing there. Pride, and love, and a certain suppressed, hesitant worry - a reflection of his own feelings. 

“She knows what she’s doing with a blade… Though she was always like that, remember? Running around hitting everyone with sticks, screaming how she didn’t want to be a  _ lady. _ I used to be so embarrassed by it, and mother didn’t know what to do with her…”

Sansa stepped closer as she fell silent, clasping her gloved hands in front. She’d been walking outside for a while, it seemed - her floor-length cloak with its hem drenched in snow, the rose color the cold had kissed into her handsome face, the crown of glistening melting crystals of snow she wore like a Queen. Probably one of those endless rounds she did around the castle, catching up continuously on what was still to be done and where improvements were needed.

Jon smiled again, taking care to hide their shared sadness behind it, and nodded in her direction.

“You both mastered your weapons. And Catelyn… I believe she’d be proud - of both of you.”

He ran the dripping cloth down his chest a last time, ignoring the prickle of a shudder when it touched upon his forever-black scars, and slapped it into the washing basin with a sigh. He didn’t want to dwell on the what-ifs. They only ever served to make him miserable.

“What can I do for you, Sansa?”

Her expression - caught, as if she’d wanted to say something in return - grew more serious, but she spoke with no urgency. Nobody had died then, or was threatening to besiege them within the hour. That was something, alright.

“I was talking to Bran in the Godswood…” 

Rounding the washing table in sweeping step, she came to a halt before the window overlooking the main yard. The talk and bustle of a busy mid-morning were audible even this high up, noises blending into the background like base colors in a painting. Days began early in winter, in those coldest hours before the sun decided to show its bleak face yonder in the east, but lasted only until near-evening - at dinner-time the darkness was so dense you couldn’t see a hand in front the eye. They could be glad for the little light they got, too; according to Sam and his smart books, a true winter’s day could pass without a sunrise whatsoever - and most of the men left alive to fend through this winter were too young to remember the last. Including Jon. 

He could tell Sansa’s thoughts had drifted off also, for she didn’t continue on her own. 

“And?” he prompted, his simple curiosity giving way to a subtle worry. Something must have happened, after all. Why would Bran otherwise… 

He spent a lot of time in the Godswood now: the heart tree helped him connect he’d told Jon a few days ago - as if that was supposed to explain it all; Jon wheeling his fur-drowned rolling chair through the snow with some difficulty and Bran staring straight ahead with his vacant eyes. They tried to stay with him as much as they could, reconnect though Bran kept telling them there was no Brandon Stark left within.

Three-eyed raven or not, Jon didn’t believe that quite; when he’d told Bran about Rickon’s death - as he felt was his duty for it’d been his fault - Bran didn’t stop him with his usual claim of ‘I’ve already seen’. His hands had turned claws around his chair’s arm rests with every further word of the report and only relaxed once Jon had described in equal detail what had happened to Ramsay Bolton through Sansa’s hand.  

Nevertheless - undecided as they were on who had traveled farthest, they all agreed that Bran won the competition on who’d changed the most. 

Sansa came to it like ripped from a million miles away, gaze flying back to meet Jon’s.

“Well, he… he said the wildlings-”

“Free Folk.”

His jaw had tightened with the interruption and Jon released it back into relaxation with conscious effort. Sansa was not like the others - at least not anymore. Sansa didn’t plot to murder every man wearing fur-coats that dared show his face south of that Gods damned wall. Himself and his siblings were simply the only ones keeping everyone else from doing so, using fear of punishment where common sense should reign. Conscious effort, indeed.

She stared at him with unreadable eyes, then nodded. 

“Free Folk. You’re right, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me. Just don’t call them that.”

For a quick moment, her face glittered with something akin to shame, like glass catching light’s reflection. It didn’t last. She knew he wasn’t trying to make her look a fool - on the contrary. Another one of his sisters grown so much since the day he’d left them. Different, different, different - and yet the same. Starks of Winterfell. Sansa inclined her head. 

“I’ll do better. Now, Bran said they are getting anxious and feel too closed in, at least the ones still staying here in Winterfell - enough to talk to Tormund about it eventually. I want to be prepared for them, and I want him prepared also.”

Jon stepped towards his dresser, pulled out a fresh undershirt. His bed creaked a little when Sansa settled on its edge, watching him knot the strings of his tunic and tug on a clean but worn out doublet of once tar-black sheepskin.

“I’ve been thinking about appropriate accommodations and realized we have many villages still unmanned that they themselves raided and destroyed. If they’d be willing, I’d like to pass those on to them, at least the ones that are well-prepped enough to house them. We’ll send some men along so they can manage necessary mending together, and some carts to make sure they are stocked on food and commodities. They can hunt in the surrounding grounds and if there’s trouble, Winterfell is just a few miles off.”

Near enough to keep track of them and their actions, far enough for them to feel like free men even if they aren’t really. Sansa had learned more in King’s Landing than she ever let on. Ruling was in her blood, but lessons in politics she’d paid high enough a price for. 

Jon buckled the last of his straps and turned towards Sansa with an exhale. 

“A good idea.”

“You think so?”

Now she sounded like a young girl, insecurity all bird song, trilling in her voice. Jon knew he only got to hear it because she chose it so. Because she trusted him. That gentle new-found fondness that had overwhelmed him the day of their reunion bumped around his ribcage.  _ Family. _

He tugged a mouth corner up.

“Yes, I do. The villages have to be manned at some point and we might as well do it now, while we still have enough to spare for reparations and provisions. If we wait until summer the damage to the housing will be much greater,” he pointed out, taking the time to walk towards his desk where the fur-lined cloak of Stark hung over a chair-back, and examine it for stains. Fine enough, though the hem needed some serious scrubbing sooner rather than later. 

“We might not have the means to rebuild until many years in. It’s a fresh wound now, it should be dressed before it turns bad. There’s not enough space here to house them comfortably… we knew it would only be a short-lived solution.”

Swinging the cloak over his shoulders, he manhandled the clasp. “And it might help the men get settled south of the wall proper if they are afforded their own land.” 

She smiled in amusement over his struggle, and got up to help him with the wolf head buckle around his throat. 

“There, all done. And thank you. Alright then, I’ll need you to-“

“Go and relay all of this to Tormund?”

As if that had been her plan all along, Sansa’s smile turned wolfish grin in the blink of an eye. An Arya kind of smile. A wicked Stark-child kind of smile, the kind Robb and him had worn too often to count whenever they knew one of their tricks would play out just right; and the kind they would lose quick enough as Ser Rodrick would haul their arses in for a proper beating.

Sansa brushed some dust off his cloak, expression unbothered, and Jon was suddenly feeling like a little boy failing to hide his stashed away sweets from his nan. 

“Don’t pretend like I’m not doing you a favor, dear brother. At least now you have reason other than your own desire to go see him. Have fun.”

And without another word she strode towards the entrance, and closed it shut behind her.

 

III

 

Mumbled curses were tumbling through the cracks around the door to Tormund’s chambers. Jon could distinctly make out a “Fuckin’ horseshit’s what this is.” followed by a bad-tempered growl and - splashing water? 

He hammered his fist into the wood, calling out so Tormund wouldn’t jump up and great him soaped up, dripping naked, and holding his blade like a battle axe. 

“It’s me! May I come in?”

There was some more - uncoordinated - splashing from the other side.

“It’s your damn castle, boy!”

Taking that for a yes, Jon sneaked inside and let the door fall shut quietly. It wasn’t  _ actually  _ his castle, rather Sansa's or Bran’s, but these days frivolities like those didn’t really matter too much. Not yet, anyway, though the list of suitors for Lady Stark grew with every day and for some reason, people thought it appropriate to ask him for permission to marry Sansa rather than herself. 

He was glad to be able to dump every letter he received onto her working desks under pretense of ‘giving her all the options’ instead of throwing them into the fire and pretending he didn’t receive shit just so he didn’t have to answer them all. He was doing that to his own proposing mail enough. 

And what a waste of time, when Jon knew of maybe three men worthy of sitting at the same table as his sister and one of those - well, one was not available for marriage. Not with Sansa, at least. 

“Enjoying your new set-up?”

“Can’t say I mind getting to wash up more often now. And hot, too.”

There’d been a significant change made to the chambers Sansa had allotted Tormund - west-wing, for guests of noble birth. Tormund always said he was staying here instead of with the other Free Folk living in the now empty quarters of the many commoners of Winterfell for Jon only, but Jon got a feeling he was growing steadily more fond of the luxuries one was afforded as prime guest of Lady Stark.

The huge white willow bathtub took up most of the room in front of the two east-facing windows and was filled about two thirds with alabaster-clouded steaming water. A tiny, high-legged circular table stood by its side, holding different soaps and oils, a ladle, and a half-empty jug of fresh mare milk.

Tormund was sitting within, back facing the door; knees pulled up, holding a small looking glass in one hand and a pair of trimming shears in the other. Jon rounded the tub in curiosity, and burst into a snorted laugh at the ridiculous face Tormund was pulling as he tried to cut his own overgrown beard into shape.

“You laughin’ at me, crow?”

The words came out muffled by stern focus and facial contortion, rendering them not nearly as intimidating as could have been.

“I absolutely am. You ever think about becoming an actor? Arya says there’s never enough of them in Braavos.”

Tormund threw him a nasty look, brows pulled together and mouth corners turned all the way down as on one of those masks they used in Highgarden’s theatres sometimes. He’d only ever seen pictures of them, yet the resemblance was uncanny. Jon had to stifle more laughter, but an arch grin remained.

“I'm just saying, you have an expressive face.” 

“I also have expressive fists, Jon Snow. Can’t say there's a person left alive who ever laughed at me, thanks to ‘em.”

“Except for me, you mean.”

“‘Cept for you. Wonder wha’that says ‘bout me.”

Jon strangled a chuckle on its way out and sauntered over with casual step, settling one thigh on the tub’s rim. He held a hand over the faint steam curling around his fingers in careful coils like wisps of magic, and glanced back at Tormund.

“Is love making you weak, Tormund Giantsbane?”

Tormund’s gaze grew softer with the crinkles forming around his eyes, his frown smoothing into an elastic smile, easy, and sweet like honey. He barked out a laugh, one of those terrible loud ones Jon couldn’t get enough of.

“For you it is, I s’pose.”

Their gaze held for a moment, then Tormund waved his looking glass like a paddle.

“Whatcha waintin’ for, heh? Water’s hot enough for both of us.”

 

*

 

“You want some help with that?”

“Eh?”

For an answer, Jon slid forward in the tub until he was settled well in Tormund's lap, calves coming to rest against strong thighs. Warm water was lapping up the walls around them, all tiny waves breaking against cliffs. Grabbing the shears from Tormund’s loose hand, Jon raised a brow. 

“I'll do it, aye?”

The now empty palm lowered onto the tub rim with measured slowness. Tormund’s calescent gaze was fixed tight on Jon’s face, eyes searching his, holding them, as if touch suspended in air. 

Another one of those endless moments, where the hand-breadth of distance between them grew crackling fire, possibility impregnating every steam-moist breath. Despite the water, Jon could feel the spot hot where his stomach was pressing against Tormund’s at every inhale, their breathing aligned like heartbeats.

Either Tormund would or he wouldn't - but the arm resting on the tub rim remained still but for an involuntary flexing of fingers and Jon relaxed away from the tug of anticipation that had kept his limbs tense. He huffed in amusement, pushed Tormund's chin up until his neck was fully stretched, and combed the coarse tight red curls up, measuring their length between his fingers.

“Practicing patience, are we?”

Tormund slapped his shoulder with the looking glass to get rid off, and settled back with eyes closed, second arm spreading him wide as bird wings to rest both on the tub’s rim.

“Don't try me, boy. I need this beard trimmed, thing’s gettin’ way too long.”

_ And there won't be much trimming done if you keep talking like that. _

The first time they’d shared a bath lay back a few weeks, on a day as timeless with snow-heavy clouds as the present. As Commander of Forces Jon had sent out a party of twelve into some woods within two day’s riding distance to check for infiltration. There had been anxious reports of smoke at night and strange noises from the surrounding villages; only the Gods knew what could be hiding in there so soon after the Long Night - or so the people thought, their worst nightmares having come to life before their eyes.

He’d have gone himself if not for the promise he’d made Sansa to stay and help deal with the new, much too young Lord Karstark who’d come begging for forgiveness…  _ and  _ Arya’s sincere wish to gut him like a pig done up for slaughter.

Instead, Tormund had volunteered to lead the party for him; Jon had taken extra good care in selecting the men he sent with. Lord Karstark had stayed alive - for now, according to Arya, though she would keep an eye on that son of traitors - and Tormund’s party had come home a week later, unscratched but for a shallow cut in one man’s leg where his leather had not held, leading through Winterfell's gates half a dozen iron men clad in chains, stick-thin and half-frozen and will unbroken.

At first, Jon hadn’t recognized Tormund among his own - for he'd been covered head to toe in caked-on mud, just as the rest of the men.

“Fuckin’ muck,” Tormund had grumbled and since Tormund had not wanted to use the baths first for he was ‘no damned lord’ and Jon had not wanted him to have to wait another minute or cramp with the other men who deserved their bath time just as much, Jon had ordered his own white willow bathtub - one with the planks sanded extra smooth - to be brought to Tormund's chambers. 

While the tub had been filled by a row of younglings carrying buckets of hot water, Jon had sat on a stool, leaned forward with his hands folded as if for prayer and watched Tormund shed his furs and scrub the worst of the dirt off over a small washing basin, listening to the account given: of the clever trap Tormund had come up with to lure the iron men out, pretending to be runaways themselves; of the swift battle that had ensued - two iron men were dead, Tormund had burned them; of the way winter was turning the fields around Winterfell into half-frozen swamps and seas of mud deep enough they'd had to climb off their horses to make sure the animals wouldn't sink - risking doing so themselves.

“What I don't do for a little killin’ down ’ere,” Tormund had grunted, glistening gloriously naked and towering tall as a tree over the basin.  

It'd been years since Jon had realized he wanted men the same as women; years since he'd grown to know it for what it was, and not just a light inkling in the lows of his belly he cared not investigate further. He wasn't someone who felt the need often. Not really, especially not with just anyone. But Tormund… he wanted Tormund all over him all of the time, and that-

Tormund had stepped towards the steaming bath then, and caught Jon stare. 

“See somethin’ ye like, Snow?”

“You don’t even know,” Jon had replied, tugging the straps of his jerkin open.

They had both learned that they enjoyed it - the sultry bath, the slick sensation of wet hands sliding down wet skin, turning their already wavy hair into true locks, to find purchase and gently comb through alike; the comfort of it - like a weightless blanket of engulfing warmth, freeing strained muscle of unknown tensions under apt fingers; how they could feel their words and gasps by the way the waters moved about them.

Tormund grew even more loosened and easy and worry-less than usual, laughing and teasing and telling stories of his grandfathers’ deeds Jon had never heard him tell before while kneading soapy fingers into Jon’s hair and Jon had not known how much he needed to sink into those stolen moments of calm until he had them passed into his hands this way, by water splashed in his face, by calves pressed to his as they relaxed at opposite ends, and their joint laughter ringing off the echoey stone walls of Winterfell. 

It had not stayed the last time, that first. The very next day Tormund had demanded for the tub to become permanent, and so it did; often, he found Tormund all by himself, creating the tides with his hands around his cock and Jon’s name hoarse on his lips - at those times Jon didn’t ask himself what made him seek out Tormund that late, an obsolete question, misplaced in the moment. 

Sometimes, on nights cold with northern winds plunging them neck-deep into fiercest frosts, Tormund would take Jon to a bath and nothing more - massage the cold from his limbs on those bad days that Jon spent shaking in his own skin, when the particular chill had clawed back inside his lungs and veins and he couldn't heave it up hard as he tried, feeling more beast than man - unnatural and wrong; Tormund would soothe the horror, lay him down on his bed by the blazing fire, rub him all over with tallow to keep skin from drying out, and wrap him up in furs like a child, holding Jon close, embracing him until the shaking would ease and they’d both fall asleep with some semblance of peace. 

Truth was, the only nights Jon slept well now were the ones he spent in Tormund’s arms - but nobody needed to know that. He was only left to hope that he helped Tormund sleep better, too.

Other times, when the bath was scalding and the air moist with steam and Jon’s face was pressed into hair of faint-red, he’d remember: Hot water and a red-haired natural disaster from beyond the wall he was in love with… 

Jon’s eyes stung all of a sudden, and he blinked a few times to get rid of the blurriness, regaining focus or else risk cutting skin. It happened around every corner, something waking an association, invoking a memory, and the tears would be threatening to spill within a moment, faster than Jon’s mind could catch up with his heart. 

One of Tormund’s arms moved from its resting place, slipping into the water and laying down fingers gentle but firm on Jon’s upper thigh. Jon glanced up, but Tormund’s eyes remained closed, his face calm as a lake. 

It was all right, he was fine. He was here, alive - for better or for worse - and so was Tormund, and so were his siblings. And those he loved who were not he could do nothing more for than remember them as they’d been. 

_ The dead can’t hear us, Jon Snow. _

He was _ fine. _

Jon cleared his throat, and shortened a few hairs just above Tormund’s man’s apple. 

“Sansa wants me to talk to you. About your people.”

“Aye. And what does Lady Sansa need ye t’say that she can’t say herself?”

Jon gave a lame chuckle, shaking his head. Pitiful, him. 

“It’s more about what I want than what she can’t, really.”

He kept trimming, taking care, trying his best to keep the square shape he knew Tormund liked on himself, and pretended not to be listening to the way Tormund’s breath caught in his breast, or to the pleasure audible when he spoke a little while later.

“My people, then. What ‘bout ’em?” 

“Bran says they’re getting restless. Don’t like being penned up within these walls for this long.”

Tormund shifted under him, making the water splash up Jon’s back, and Jon had to adjust his grip to make sure he wouldn’t cut off too much in the wrong place. “Stay still, will you?” he mumbled, slinging his fingers around the dampened back of Tormund’s neck, thumb pushing into the nook right below where jaw met ear. Tormund did, almost awkwardly, and mumbled into a pause between two cuts.

“Is this yer sister’s way of throwin’ us out to the dogs, then?” 

Jon stilled, letting an endless moment pass in quiet, then straightened and pulled his hands back to rest on the highs of Tormund’s broad shoulders. Of course this would come up - he didn’t blame Tormund for it. Aeons of distrust didn’t vanish in the blink of an eye and a few warm meals shared. 

“No, it’s not. You remember those villages you raided? Those villagers that don’t need their houses anymore?”

Tormund’s mouth became a thin, drawn-out line, vanishing in the tangle of yet untrimmed beard hair. He couldn’t deny, but he didn’t disapprove either. Raiders and crows, that same-old truce of theirs. Jon  _ should _ consider himself lucky to find his guts still intact, after all the lies he’d told Tormund about Castle Black. Almost a love confession in itself, that.

“Sansa wants to give the villages to your people. Send some builders along to get the housing in check, and supplies to make sure they got what they need. They’ll have hunting grounds, and space. Nobody’s gonna bother them.”

Not like here, where they kept being beaten or raped or spat on, and if that didn’t result in bloody fists and beaten faces, then no one had seen shit, ever. No one knew who’d done it. Ever.

Bile rose in his throat; he swallowed it down. Tormund’s huge hands grabbed his wrists gently, thumbs picking up circles where the veins pearled green below skin.

“Yer sister is one smart lady, Jon Snow. Far enough to let them their own, close enough to-”

“Keep an eye on them, yes.”

Jon’s face shifted into a grimace. He stretched out his empty hand against Tormund’s damp skin, gliding it back and forth along his strong shoulder line, the valleys of muscle. Droplets collected under his fingers’ touch and ran down in trails to vanish within their source. The calming hand around his wrist remained where it was. 

Truth was, Sansa was risking open rebellion by even considering giving up the villages, Jon knew this sure as nightfall. And by now, so did Tormund. He’d been exceptionally quick at picking up all the political details of their ‘lordly lives’. Didn’t mean he gave a fuck about them.

Jon sighed, jerking his shoulders in a half-shrug. He was always getting something wrong, someone hurt; his path was plastered with the cobble of bad decisions and lucky outcomes. Never the one clear road to follow, at least none visible to his fool’s eye. 

They still called him King. And for what? 

When he lifted his eyes to meet Tormund’s steady gaze, though - a fine line digging along his brow as if he could stare right through Jon’s skull and into his head - the feeling eased. Piercing, and genuine, and honest, but never, ever cold. 

_ He’s way too good for you, Snow.  _

“Will they be alright with this arrangement?” 

Tormund stared him down stern for a moment too long to be serious, then clapped his hand on Jon’s forearm and huffed out a deprecating laugh, the tone of which Jon recognized with ease: the subtle mocking of the Westerosi business of wasting time on delusions. 

“My people’ve lived beyond that damn wall for thousands o’years now, Jon Snow. They know how to survive a cold none of ye Southerlins have ever dared imagine. An’ houses will be a luxury some of those bastards haven’t had their whole lives. You really askin’ me if it’s fine to let my people go be people?” 

He wet a hand in the milky waters and ran it through his hair, combing a few stray strands back. More dipping, and coarse wet fingertips ran along Jon’s scalp, sending delicate shivers down along his neck and spine. 

“The moment I tell’em ‘bout this they’ll be packin’ their bags. They’ve been buggerin’ me for weeks to leave for the wall, ya know? None of ‘em understand how I’m not just as eager to get out of this overfilled shithole.”

Jon ignored the last line, tucked it away for later to savor properly pressed between their mouths. Tormund’s hand broke the waters by his waist, fingers sliding against his skin, kneading skillfully into hard muscle.

“All right. The villages are closer to the wall, they know that. You tell them to get ready fast as they can, and I’ll make sure they got what they need… if they leave soon-”

“-they’ll be settled sooner, you don’t gotta tell me that, boy. It’ll be good for ‘em to get outta here ‘n get some work done… skin some fresh rabbit at least. Gettin’ lazy with nothin’ to do, the bunch of ‘em. Shootin’ at targets all day long like lads in trainin’, hah! Wonder how they haven’t torn into each other yet. Too busy roughin’ up the Southerlins, I s’pose.”

Tormund groaned with a shift of muscle, closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the tub’s rim, same old hand running up and down the curve of Jon’s thigh and buttock underwater, causing tiny ripples to sweep along the whole bath - a gentle touch, slow and steady and safe. Lulling as honeyed milk.

“Winter’s here,” Tormund grumbled. “We wanna be goin’ home soon.”

The pang in Jon’s stomach hit him out of nowhere and almost knocked him over with its punch. A fear well-known as an old friend twisted his insides into anxious coils of nerves with new-found fervor, as if it had been laying in waiting all this time just to sink its claws into the ever-aching flesh of Jon’s heart the moment he least expected it, the moment it was fed anew.

They weren’t speaking of the same kind of settled. 

Jon meant forever south of the wall and Tormund meant… what? Months? Weeks? Until things had quieted down and he could lead his people… home? The coils of nerves turned heavy and hard as stones in his gut, weighing him down, sinking him sure with drowning in the depths of an ocean too cold to be named.  _ Home. _ A myriad of miles north of here. A myriad of miles far gone.

Of course he’d be going  _ home. _ In quiet, quiet desperation, Jon dug up his foolish, selfish hopes by their roots once again, and buried them deep down in frozen shores of obsidian sand.

Using a knuckle to nudge Tormund’s chin a little to the left, he aligned his shears. Tiny red curls collected in the dip between Tormund’s clavicles like flakes of dried blood.

 

*

 

Tormund was humming some old Free Folk tune below him - Jon was sure he’d heard this one sung at a fireplace beyond the wall before; his body swung with the tune like harp string, cradling him in a lull while he was shearing away with slow precision.

A knock rapped on the door, ripping him from his pensive state.

“ENTER!” 

Jon jerked at the bellow sounding so close to his ear; a chunk of beard almost went missing with it.  _ Almost; _ his heart picked up its pace once more, and for a moment - caught between happenings - he wondered what Tormund might look like shaven clean. Younger, probably. More like lush summers spent wandering the markets of Oldtown, ripe fruit in hand, than rough winters surviving in the Frostfangs with nothing to chew on but your own toes. Jon’d never even been to Oldtown before… But instead of asking something stupid, he knocked a deserved elbow into Tormund’s ribs.

A youth of some sixteen stuck his head in the door, gaze lowered - Jon knew the face, did not recall a name.

“I brought the hot water you’d asked for, Ser.”

Tormund didn’t even spare a glance over his shoulder, though his voice growled hard like an uppercut dealt. 

“I’m no damn Ser, ye dung-head. How often d’I have to tell you.”

“Im sorry, S-, I mean, T-”

Obviously struggling with the right form of address the boy stood there, tongue tying into knots and shoulders round with the weight of two huge buckets hanging off them. 

Tormund blinked his eyes open, rightening somewhat, his lungs expanding beneath Jon’s forearms.

“Just get the water in here alread- OI! Snow, ye- bastard!”

His play-pretend anger lost half its fierceness by the cackle he couldn’t hold back at the sight of Jon shaking like a birch ruffled by wind. Jon’s grin, broad as could be and pulling painfully at his mouth, melted into rolling laughter; the waters wobbled about them in merry agreement. 

The boy’d still jumped at the yell, spilling some of his carry onto the floor boards as he marched over with his head bowed, cheeks blooming faint pink. Avoiding looking in their direction, he took up one of the empty buckets sitting by the side of the tub, and lowered it into the end by Tormund’s feet. Jon cleared his throat and calmed enough to seem sensibly engaged in his trimming. The used water flowed into the bucket with a sea monster’s gulp, its level sinking against the back of his spine.

“Maybe I should knight you, to make it easier on them,” Jon murmured, eyes narrowing at a last line he was trying to clean up proper.

Tormund’s restless hand moved up from caressing Jon’s ribs in a swift motion and grabbed a fistful of his hair; not harshly, but enough to make it tug a little, expose his throat. Jon’s breath caught in his breast. 

“I’ll bend yer blade in half b‘fore it ever touches my shoulder, Jon Snow. I’ll be no damned Ser of yours.”

Jon exhaled, slow and conscious, enjoying the tingle of promise fluttering across his skin, and twisted his head until Tormund let go.

“That so?”

His quiet question echoed indecent in the damp air, like forbidden fruit asking for a bite. Tormund didn’t answer, but gripped the side of Jon’s neck.

It should have felt threatening, for Tormund was able to snap it in half if he pleased, swift like a branch broken over the knee. Instead, it was good - an anchoring weight, something stable and sure with calm and trust. Jon wanted to lean into it, feel his pulse beating against Tormund’s skin, fall asleep. Breathe and know his life lay in another’s hands and know he did not fear it.

Tormund’s calloused thumb ran sweetly over his man’s apple, up and up his throat, barely leaving a touch, and Jon didn’t notice closing his eyes into a gentle trembling until a soft moan had almost escaped him. There’d been a retort in his head ready to be plucked and given - something flirtatious, just loud enough to hear - but it was nowhere to be found now; Tormund’s careful fingers moved slowly to glide over the sensitive skin behind Jon’s ear, grazing the scalp where his hairline began and Jon’s breaths turned shallow through a mouth fallen open, quiet heat trickling in against the lows of his spine. 

The boy had filled his second bucket, and emptied the fresh without so much as a squeak; steaming hot water came rushing into the same far end, lapping up Jon’s arse and back.

By the door he awaited further instruction, but Tormund needed a moment or two, clearing his throat yet sounding hoarse against the casualty of his words. Jon opened his eyes to find Tormund’s burning gaze raking over his face as he spoke. 

“Make sure ye come back with s’more in a quarter of an hour.”

“Yes, S-I mea-”

“LEAVE!”

The boy fled from the room red as weirwood leaves and as they dropped the overly sensuous act - though somewhere along the way of Tormund’s fingers around his throat Jon had almost forgotten they were playing - Jon fell into lazy laughter on the door snapping shut, stroking Tormund’s hairy chest and cutting off a hair too long here and there. 

“Don't know what he's more embarrassed about, not knowing what to call you, or finding me here, like this.”

Chuckling in amusement, Tormund turned a raised eyebrow on Jon, fingers pushing water aside to settle back on his hips as if by chance.

“All the boys ‘n’ all the girls in this damned castle are dreamin’ ‘bout a night with Yer Highness, so I’d say it was neither.”

Jon barked out a sober laugh, knowing full-well  _ who _ everyone in their damned castle kept dreaming about. Especially after that one evening of oil-wrestling by the Great Fire someone had thought would be a good idea for unification purposes. Friendly competition and such, to keep the fighting spirit at bay.  _ Right.  _ The only one purpose it had definitely served had been to make sure there wasn’t a person left in Winterfell who didn’t want to their back blown out by Tormund fucking Giantsbane.

“Aye. Bet you like that you're the only one indulging in that particular pleasure, hm?”

Tormund’s chuckle swept away to expose a row of shining teeth, eyes glittering with mirth. There was something leering about him - the mood Tormund slipped into so flawlessly it made Jon laugh out loud and shake his head to hide how badly he  _ wanted _ .

_ You gotta let yourself live a little, tiny crow. _

“Ye bettin’ just right. Now, enough with the shearin’ already.”

He pulled Jon in with a splash until they were pressed chest to chest, and found his mouth. They kissed slow and well-practiced, one of Tormund’s hands sinking into Jon’s hair, the other gliding up to rest on his waist. The water was so much warmer now, almost too hot to be comfortable. A trickle of sweat bead in the back of his neck and ran down the length of his spine in the most agonizing way.

Jon pulled back with reluctance, raising a brow in his turn.

“You won’t trim mine for me? Pay-back for all my hard work?” 

Tormund only smiled to himself, running his fingers through the dark hairs of it, scratching his knuckles down along Jon’s jaw, tugging a little at the lengths around his chin. Jon would never get enough of the way he was being looked at in moments like these; regarded - with a fondness running deep as rivers, as if Tormund’s gaze was a caress, and Jon was something Gods-made, and perfect, worthy of all that. In moments like these, he almost believed it himself.

“Next time. I’ll find some other way to repay ye now. And y’know I like you unruly ‘n all. Makes y’look like one of us, pretty or not.”

Tormund leaned in for another kiss, and Jon dropped the shears blindly into the general direction of the side table. 

“Unfair,” he mumbled, voice catching against lips, and sank, mind and all, into the way Tormund was pulling heat into his veins like golden thread, letting his blood burn red below his skin, warmer than any water could ever be.

Sweat broke out across Jon’s forehead. His scarred hands slid in along Tormund’s jaw and cupped his face with care. 

He knew what Tormund meant when he said it like that. One of us. Next to me. Of the free, where you belonged all along.

A memory came back to Jon, of his second… (was it the second?) week with Tormund’s and Ygritte’s group on the way south towards that terrifying climb; of Tormund showing up in his tent at half an hour past a meek sunrise, bare-chested and glistening after his snow bath, holding up a bottle of warmed through goat milk for breakfast and a leather skin dripping of seal fat, because he’d noticed how Jon ‘didn’t know shit ’bout maintainin’ a proper beard’. He’d rubbed it all over Jon’s face, fingers more careful than Jon had ever imagined them to be. As he’d finished, Tormund had grinned down at him in that skewed way of his, with a sort of satisfaction. “Now ye smell right, too.” he’d said and so had Ygritte, laughing at his stink, but with a strange glimmer in her ever-changing eyes, quite reminiscent of Tormund’s blunt satisfaction. 

_ Where he belonged. _

Closer. All he wanted, was to be closer. He pushed further in on Tormund’s lap, connecting at every possible spot, hugging flush; hardness slid slick along the back of his thigh, tantalizingly right; his own pulled along Tormund’s stomach, pressed between them, aching. Swallowing Tormund’s groan with a last kiss, Jon pulled back while he could, and did not recognize his own voice, dripping in something heady, cut apart by his heavy breaths.

“Y’think we’ll be done in a quarter hour?” 

Tormund’s fingers pressed into the small of Jon’s back, ran lower and just a little lower still. The gentle bite of his nails was dangerous, straining them towards recklessness.

“Who cares. Let the boy have somethin’ to think ’bout in bed tonight.”

Jon shook his head, but couldn’t suppress a lopsided grin. 

He remembered being sixteen; remembered that particular rush any time Satin’d walked past him at Castle Black.

“You're shameless, Tormund Giantsbane.” 

“Aye,” Tormund murmured with half a grin, nuzzling along Jon’s scratchy jaw.  His palms slid around slow, down along Jon’s tight abdomen, touch barely ghosting over tender flesh. “Glad y’like it.”

Their mouths met again as Jon pressed down, the languid slowness replaced by something more urgent, wiping all coherent thought from his mind. He only knew his hands, holding, keeping, loving; knew the hands on him, hugging him close, torturing gasps from him at their touch, the tongue he tasted against his own, knew his mouth’s press against the skin of Tormund’s neck and the noises it gifted him with, rich as velvet from deep within; the bath’s splash to his hip’s moves; his breath cast back moist and hot against his lips, mingling with Tormund’s, shared between them like one chest breathing, kissing, and kissing, and kissing.

Jon’s nose pushed into Tormund’s cheek, foreheads pressed together as they parted for air and Jon arched his back away from the slickness caught between their stomachs.

“Gods…” Tormund mumbled, gaze cloudy, as if a starving met with an entire feast, unable to choose where to look. Wet hands combed Jon’s hair back, and held his face with reverence. They gazed at each other, drunk on it, light-headed from humidity and need.

Tormund barely managed to take his eyes off: turning away only when his efforts to grab the oils off the side-table by blind reaching resulted in the jug of milk landing on the floor with a wooden clunk, spilling its smooth contents all over the boards along with Tormund’s breathless curses. Jon laughed again, harder than before, almost dropping onto his side, and only stopped when his giggles were drowned against Tormund’s mouth, laced into kisses until they were moans. 

Did Tormund have any idea how _much_ Jon liked about him? He did not think so.

 

*

 

The scars down his chest ached when brushed by lips, the way one aches for another; his hands were buried in Tormund’s hair as he pushed back slowly onto oil-slicked fingers, shuddering through a groan. He decided then, that having a  _ proper _ reason to go see someone was appraised much too highly.

When he reached around to align Tormund - cheeks pressed together, closing his eyes into the sensation, sinking down slow and easy, careful whispers of ‘that’s right’ washing over him, fingers holding onto his - a moan flew past Jon’s lips on own accord; another followed right behind, stumbling as if over pebbles, catching against the insides of his throat like melody from a dream.

And then, just for a little while, nothing in the entire world mattered but the palms he loved that held him close, and the man he loved that he felt inside. 

 

*

 

Poised upon the brink of fatigue, Jon leaned his forehead against Tormund’s upper cheek and enjoyed the way their skin stuck together from steam and sweat where they were staying above water, bodies moving in unison along waves of deep breaths. 

_ Nothin’ better than a good fight but a good fuck. _

A slow smile tugged at his mouth corner, skewed as it was, hidden away against Tormund’s beard. True, that. Though Tormund was always full of the wisest things to say.

Warm hands kept running up and down Jon’s sides and back, washing away the flush of heat to replace with the engulfing comfort of the bath, soothing the muscles in his back. 

“Thank you,” Tormund grumbled, low and content, turning his head to brush his nose against Jon’s temple, “For the trimmin’, I mean.”

A wet hand came up to comb back Jon’s bangs once more, tugging them carefully behind his ear. After a few more moments, Jon straightened with a sigh and regarded his work - ran his hand through it, all well-rounded curves and sharpened, clean edges. A job well done.

“Next time you need one, just call for me.”

Tormund circled an arm around Jon best as he could, and pulled him in closer by the waist, staring up at him with the slow, pliant smile of the perfectly unconcerned.

“An’ what will the castle have to say ’bout that, eh? Some wildling arse callin’ for Ye Grace any time o’ day to clip his beard ‘n fuck his hole?”

Jon laughed, and pressed his lips along the highs of Tormund’s face, peck after peck after peck - small and gentle, because he got to, for now, and he needed to, for ever. 

“I stopped caring long ago what this castle had to say about me. Won’t change now, that.”

A knock sounded on the door and Jon gave a lazy call to enter. It was the same boy as before - Bren? Quent? He just could not remember. - his face red as beets, mumbling something about more hot water. Jon beckoned him inside to get rid of his charge quick as possible; Tormund paid them no mind but pressed his face into the tangle of Jon’s hair, inhaling slowly like trying a fine wine. The grip around Jon’s waist never loosened.

The water ebbed and rose, fire-boiled; the door clicked shut; the steam settled on their sweat-damp skin, against their reddened cheeks, in their moistened lungs; Jon didn’t want to leave. Not yet. Not ever. 

If only this could be all there was to life. If only they could stay here like this; the flow of time caught still within these resting waters, their ribs intertwined where their hearts lay pressed against one another, beating the same tune. No more talk of moving, and going, and changing. No more goodbyes. Just this.

Jon buried his face in the hot damp crook of Tormund’s neck.

**Author's Note:**

> lol remember when I said this would be something wholesome and Not Sad? haha right, turns out i lied to myself with that one  
> I REALLY DID WANT SOMETHING WHOLESOME AND NOT SAD no thanks @ brain
> 
> also? ao3 editing sucks ass lmao BUT YK THE SKY IS BLUE
> 
> i really dont think im good at writing jon tbh, maybe i should examINE THAT or maybe i should leave these characters alone bc i obviously dont know what im doing but yk :) Jon fucked his aunt on the show :) so I do have the sole consolation that nothing I’ll ever do will be worse than what D&D came up with :)


End file.
